The Equity Line contains original analyses, commentary, and “on the ground” stories of students, parents, educators, and activists all over the nation striving to improve education. It chronicles our efforts, as well as those of partners and friends who are working toward the shared goal of closing gaps.

An offshoot of Ed Trust’s Echoes From the Gap series, drawing stories of students from behind the statistics, this blog series shares shorter narratives — brief glimpses into classrooms and hallways — that give readers an opportunity to examine educator practices and policies through the intimate lens of student experience. All…

I have recently been exposed to discussions teachers are having in the United Kingdom, and it turns out — drum roll, please — they talk about the same things as teachers in the United States. One thing I have been interested to learn is that teachers in the U.K. are…

UPDATED If there has been unanimous agreement on anything during the process for renewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act it is this: School ratings systems should no longer be just about performance on standardized tests. Indeed, every version of the new law in both the House and Senate has…

Not long ago, I wrote about the disbelief African American students at Elmont Memorial High School confront about their high achievement. Ashley Simon, the valedictorian of the class, told me she is often greeted with surprise when people hear she earned 5’s on five Advanced Placement exams. Other…

In two new papers, scholar John Hattie identifies the most important — and the least important — things we can do to improve education, based on syntheses of a great deal of research. In the Huffington Post, I write about what he found. In one of the papers, Hattie addresses what…

On a visit to Berlin last year, my husband and I found ourselves sitting on a streetcar next to another American, identified by his University of Memphis T-shirt. As fellow tourists do, we struck up a conversation. How long had he been there? A few days. What…

Visit this page for a complete list and an interactive map of the 113 college dropout factories. Dear College Dropout Factories, As part of our quest to increase the public demand for greater accountability in higher education, The Education Trust has continued our commitment to identifying four-year colleges and…

I came to Ed Trust in 2004 to help find high-performing schools with significant numbers of students of color and students from low-income families and then figure out what it is they do. These were the (relatively) early days of No Child Left Behind, and many people around…

At some point we have to be honest about some of these kids.” The veteran educator spoke in italics, words slanting off her tongue eager to reveal their hidden meaning. “We have to separate the wheat from the chaff and tell some of these kids they’re out.…

In Huffington Post this week, I write about a book that I found really exciting — Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better. It describes a process of improvement developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching that borrows from business’s quality…

Last week, several Teach Plus teachers spoke on Capitol Hill about how federal accountability policy has impacted their teaching. Speaking passionately about their students, classrooms, and schools, these teachers emphasized that federal law must ensure high expectation for all groups of students and prompt meaningful action and support when any…

Last week, Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, took to the pages of Education Week to call leaders of the Urban League, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the League of Latin American Citizens, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights…

A new study shows that new teachers are more likely to stay in the profession (83 percent) than most previous studies have suggested (as low as 50 percent). That’s encouraging news, but it’s important to remember that staying in the profession doesn’t mean staying in the…

Today, I testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights as it convenes a hearing on the effect of college access and success on the socioeconomic mobility of people of color. I’m glad that the commission is digging into this subject because it gets too little attention.…

To the young leaders, the organizers, the rage against the machiners: I was you. Spelled America with three Ks. Wrote angry poetry on notepaper in the back of the class – when I managed to attend. Drew raised fists along the margins of the low-level dittos handed out…

Craig Gfeller, principal of a small, high-poverty elementary school in exurban Washington, is adamant that his school provides opportunities for his students because, he says, schools are the only hope many poor children have. “The only route for poor children out of poverty is us,” he says. He…

College Results Online has been updated with the most recent data from the federal government (2012-13), giving you even more information to compare in this one-stop shop tool. At CollegeResults.org — now in its 10th year of compiling and sharing critical information on colleges across the country — you…

Teacher evaluation systems are complex. There are a number of measures available — such as classroom observations, student achievement growth, and survey results — to rate a teacher’s performance, and each one has its own insight to add. Districts should keep that in mind, particularly as they (and policymakers and…

In Huffington Post this week, I talk about a new movement of teachers who are taking control of their own professional development by seeking out rigorous cognitive and education research that can really help improve their practice. One of the cornerstone works they cite is John Hattie’s Visible Learning…

I was just talking with a friend whose son is in his second year of teaching. During that entire time, his principal has been in his classroom only once for a 10-minute “walk-through.” With all we know now about the importance of school leaders, it’s really…